Latest event from the undying VIP culture of Kashmir

Srinagar: Dr Mustafa Kamal is a National Conference leader, Former minister, the son of first Prime Minister of J&K Sheikh Abdullah and brother to Dr Farooq Abdullah.

Dr Kamal on Thursday claimed that his elder sister Khalida Shah, who is also the wife of former chief minister Ghulam Mohammad Shah, was asked to personally appear for a phone connection by the state-owned BSNL.

Considering the sensitive situation in Kashmir BSNL has been very stringent in giving out phone connections to any individual in Kashmir without discriminating between the highly placed government officials, politicians or civilians.

Dr Kamal, however, did not take kindly to BSNL’s rule and termed the act as “Shameful” allegedly claiming the event to be an act that promotes distrust between J&K and New Delhi.

A statement issued by Kamal said he flayed the “central government agency BSNL for taking undue advantage of the current unrest in Kashmir and elsewhere in the state by refusing to give BSNL connection to new applicants from the affected areas on one pretext or the other.”

Dr Kamal also reiterated his father in a way when he said, “Don’t allow them (Kashmiris) to live in peace (and) also don’t allow them to die of hunger,” he said, further describing it as India’s “carrot and stick policy regarding J&K.”

Kamal said the “Indian government’s (colonial) attitude” was at its zenith during the devastating floods of September 2014 when food packets meant for the sufferers never reached them and before even a penny could reach the flood victims, the Indian Air Force “grabbed Rs 500 crore as service charges that the Indian government paid right away.”
“Policy-makers in Delhi should rectify this drift before it is too late,” Kamal said.

Khalida is widow of former chief minister Ghulam Muhammad Shah, whose record of clamping curfew and shoot-at-sight orders in Srinagar when he toppled his brother-in-law Farooq Abdullah’s government in 1984.